head over heels
by quorra laraex
Summary: A magician, an escape artist: two showstoppers, and the five times he catches her when she falls. – Daniel/Henley


**a/n:** i was tempted to make another.

* * *

**head over heels**

* * *

**.**

**.**

**.**

She's falling – with an uncontrollable velocity and her heart stopped, hair a mess of waves, breathless – when she decides she likes this feeling, especially when J. Daniel Atlas is there to catch her. There's a rapid pace beginning in the depth of her stomach, enveloping her body in an implosion of warmth and a fluttering similar to the flap of a butterfly's wing. When their eyes meet, he smiles at her.

(_And when their roles in their plot end and it's suddenly all over –_ )

/

They meet during the roughest times of their lives.

It begins in a swanky little bar in the outskirts of Chicago on her twenty-first birthday – at least, that's what he could assume from the chanting of _twentyonetwentyone_, as she finishes the last gulp of a Jameson.

He wasn't quite fond of bars as such, smallish and cramped, and barstools squeaky. _Especially_ with annoying girls like her. He preferred clubs, darker walls and crimson lamps with a floor to dance on rather than a karaoke stage. He could be propped on an asian-inspired barstool flirting senselessly with a pretty blonde girl that he could take home in his cabaret parked front.

But the thing was: he was _broke_.

He couldn't afford a cabaret and – for God's sake – his _own_ goddamn vodka. And that's why, slouching there, moody and (just a tad) drunk, he could be found mooching off free drinks in a shitty bar that a high school friend owned. He was only a mere street entertainer, pulling simple cards and a stupid rabbit out of a hat, when he knew he could make it big. He just didn't know what he was missing.

Then she's there, slung across a stool beside him with an empty green bottle of whiskey between curled, manicured fingers. She slurs, sloppily, "Bartender, can I get another?"

"Reckless," he mutters under his breath. He could have held it in, he thought. But it's too late because then he feels a fiery amber eyes burning into him from his peripheral vision and he wishes he had read the _how-to-disappear_ illusion from his magician guide that morning.

"_Excuse me_?" the girl sneers in response.

He looks at her then, dull and dark and sipping at his Smirnoff while he mockingly looked around before landing on a pair of eyes that glared daggers. Cockily, he adds, "Did you sneeze?"

He inhales her frustration, the current entertainment in his eyes. Before he's taken a back when her pursed lips transcend into a smile of knowing – which he absolutely _hates_, since he's always despised the idea of someone being just one step ahead of him.

Perhaps she took a liking to jackass guys like him, because before he knew it she had pulled him into the girls' restroom where heated kisses and hand roaming shenanigans took place. They could blame the alcohol, really, because at some point he hadn't realized whom had seduced whom, but he decided he didn't really care because despite having nothing – he felt _everything_.

She excuses herself later, stating she had forgotten her coat at one of the booths, which ignites his suspicion. She hadn't worn a coat the entire night, always in nothing but a tight black number that embraced around all the right areas. He quietly exits the restroom after her, feeling the empty pockets of his jeans for the leather pouch that contained a mere ten bucks, a Starbucks gift card, and an I.D.

If this girl thought she could pull off an escape with a stunt like that, she was very wrong.

He makes his way toward the exit in an opposing direction, sliding a chair toward the path she'd been taking near the door, where she had inevitably tripped, and he, as planned, caught her before hitting against the wooden floor with arms out and a condescending smirk planted on his face.

She looks up to see the man that had helped her, eyes wide and suddenly nervous when he dangles his wallet in front of her face.

They walk outside into the environment of a serene nightfall when he states, "Makes me wonder how many times you've pulled that childish trick off."

"It's worked up until tonight," her arms are crossed, stubbornly. "Look, I'm sorry."

He doesn't reply, because what were you even supposed to respond to apologies?

"My parents are _loaded_, but I was recently just kicked out and my parents won't help me pay for my next semester of college and I'm currently rooming with someone I met on craigslist and it's my twenty-_fucking_-first birthday and I'm celebrating it _alone_ in the first bar I could find _and_—I'm just in need of money, James."

Already read his I.D., did she? "Don't call me that."

She huffs, her breath in the atmosphere, noting how he hadn't given a single damn about her life and the vulnerability in her voice. Throat tight and knees wobbly, mind in the gutter, she needed something to hold onto to keep her steady. "What do you suppose I call you?"

_Nothing_, is about to jump off his tongue, already on the edge, but he decides against it when an idea blooms in his mind as he takes her (somewhat) sly actions and her (very) hidden motives into consideration. "My middle name, Daniel. And what name do I have the honor in calling my failure of a thief?"

"Henley," she smiles brightly. "Henley Reeves."

He thinks it's a faux alias, cautious of another trick she may have up her sleeve and he's about to comment on it until he contemplates against it and gets to the point, a proposition that could help the both of them during a time of desperation.

"I have a compromise for you, Henley."

/

Living with one another as roommates had definitely been a challenge that consisted of arguments over endless, unnecessary things such as whose turn it had been to buy the groceries or clean the kitchen and pay the electricity bill.

When Daniel realized he had been wrong and it actually was his turn to pay the bill for their electricity, he hadn't corrected himself. Stubborn and frustrated with himself, he avoided her for her constant bantering, walking away from the black hell hole that had been their kitchen. He couldn't even _see_ her in their lack of light yet her voice was _everywhere_.

And where were the goddamn flashlights?

"Don't you dare leave me alone here and go help me find batteries!"

"How did you even _see_ me?" the growing entertainer snaps, pivoting his head back toward the sound that swept toward him. "Did you learn some trick to see in the fucking dark?"

"Oh, shut your senseless trap. I heard your footsteps," she mutters as he hears her climb onto their counter to rummage through top cabinets with the feel of those nifty little hands for anything that could laminate the dark of their apartment.

Despite his ignorance, he complies and roams around their kitchenette, checking drawers and accidentally running his hand against her calf. "Are you standing?"

Henley ignores him because _obviously_, she is.

"Are you really that short without those extravagant heels of yours?" he snidely asks.

"Shut _u_—," distracted and scared, she grabs the edge of the cabinet door for support when her foot slips and accidentally kicks him. He's about to indignantly respond to her action until he realizes the girl had been holding on for dear life on the marble counter. If only he had a camera with him. She squeaks, "A little help would be nice!"

He hesitates for a moment, contemplating if he should or not as he took her irrational, hysterical personality into consideration.

"_Danny_!"

"Fine," he scoffs in acquiescence. "Just let go, I'm right here."

Henley fumbles a bit then, desperately putting all her trust into him when she had the sudden realization that the worst that could happen was injuring her bum on the floor – or perhaps a concussion could ensue if her head bumped any edge or corner and second thoughts instantly sweep her mind.

"Henley, I've got you," he reassures (almost) kindly. It's the least he could do for forgetting to pay the stupid bill.

She lets go and drops into him.

/

It's been six years and they're working together, once again. Performing stunts like no other, brilliant in comparison from when they first began and from their stages of performing solo.

If she could be completely honest, Henley Reeves had no intention of going back to the one and only (jackass prick) Daniel Atlas, especially after her decision of leaving him to begin with. The memory's painful every time her mind has the time to absorb that moment from all those years ago. It hurt, the way she strolled out with her luggage rolling and eyes wet. It _hurt_ because this was her life that she was walking away from, ending – or _beginning_, she excused to him. It _hurt_ that she was going to be alone again, no help by her side, no one to be there for her when everything came crashing down and vice versa. Despite how condescendingly frustrating Danny was, he was the only one there for her, and he had helped her, and it _hurt_ the very most when he let her walk out the door.

But there she is, standing on a stage in New Orleans in the dark dress she wore in that stupid bar where everything started. He's blowing a bubble, larger, and larger, and she can hear the huge crowd in their amazement when she runs, jumps and floats.

Twirling in the midst of the air during their latest, jaw dropping apparatus, a grin is perched on her face because just as a blank slate, she forgets the pain, the past, their history. And just as she is to touch the balcony, the spherical illusion ends with a single _pop_, and she comes flying downward with a practiced screech. Falling is exhilarating, she remembers thinking as she lands into his arms with familiar eyes drowning her and a smile she hadn't known she missed.

/

And then they're both falling in a single, outrageous leap from the building, transforming into millions of particles as their final illusion in the eyes of the audience, disappearing for what they knew could be forever. Wrapped in thickening air while freely spiraling downwards, it's instinctive to the both of them, for reasons they decided to brush off, to grasp each other's hands.

It would be a lie if he had said the brightness of her eyes, illuminated from the fluorescence of the street lamps and city lights above them, did not give him a tingling feeling that jolted from his chest to a cold shiver in his spine and blood boiling in his hands. The feeling she was capable of giving him was undoubtfully the closest element to magic, itself – eternity on his fingertips.

They're still in the midst of charging atmosphere when he pulls her atop him to keep her from hurting herself, ignoring Merritt's shrill, conceited laughter and Henley's mid-air shuffling before he's the first to take their fall onto the net, which still burned even when wearing layers of apparel.

The escape artist rolls her body a one-eighty while on his chest above their apparatus to face him with a soft gaze that made his legs weak. He thinks that even if she slid off him then, he still wouldn't be able to stand up properly because _goddamn_ the things this girl did to him with no utter knowledge. He also thinks she's about to slap him because suddenly there's fire in her eyes; with a look similar to when she shoots him unsettling, threatening remarks. But instead, to his surprise and lack of breath, her lips lock with his.

"Yo, lovebirds," Merritt interrupts the state of euphoria as he soothes his arms from the burns caused by the ropes before settling off to undo the ties. "We should get going before some idiot notices this net."

Eyes breaking from the third horsemen, Daniel's gaze flickers back to the girl with a flush fading from his ears. And then the arrogance is back in toll. "It would be much simpler to keep going if you weren't perched on top of me."

"Shut up, Danny," her orbs roll as she slides off his body with a smirk and lands on the concrete with a _clack_ of her heels.

He tries his best to walk steadily behind her without his legs giving in.

/

( –_ they're only still beginning_.)

**.**

**.**

**.**

* * *

_fin._

* * *

**a/n:** so jesse and isla had a twitter interview thing right and i asked to analyze the relationship between these two characters specifically and isla says henley has this unrequited love and jesse feels threatened and i'm personally not satisfied with those answers so here i am, bending canon, like always.

please review and tell me your thoughts :)


End file.
